gdb_7_3-branch not buildable?

[Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>]

Tom Tromey mentioned that the git mirror has lost sync with the cvs one,
which was causing a build failure, so I went to compare them.
I did the following on sourceware.org:
(these snippets may not be 100% accurate, because they're
partially reconstructed after the fact, but you get the idea)

# First get a cvs dir:
cd /tmp
mkdir .j && cd .j
(
  wget ftp://sourceware.org/pub/gdb/snapshots/current/gdb-weekly-CVS-7.3.50.20110412.tar.bz2
  bzip2 -dc gdb-weekly-CVS-7.3.50.20110412.tar.bz2 | tar xf -
  mv src gdb-cvs
  cd gdb-cvs
  cvs up -r gdb_7_3-branch
)

# Now a git dir:
(
  git clone /git/gdb.git && cd gdb &&
    git br --track v7.3 remotes/origin/gdb_7_3-branch && git co v7.3
)

# Compare them:
diff -u -r -x.git -xCVS gdb gdb-cvs > k

$ diffstat k
 gdb-cvs/ChangeLog                               |   71 ------
 gdb-cvs/Makefile.in                             |    2
 gdb-cvs/Makefile.tpl                            |    2
 gdb-cvs/bfd/ChangeLog                           |    4
 gdb-cvs/bfd/elfxx-ia64.c                        |    1
 gdb-cvs/bfd/version.h                           |    2
 gdb-cvs/configure                               |  283 ++++++++++++++----------
 gdb-cvs/configure.ac                            |  282 ++++++++++++++---------
 gdb-cvs/contrib                                 |only
 gdb-cvs/gdb/ada-lang.c                          |   90 ++-----
 gdb-cvs/gdb/arm-linux-tdep.c                    |   38 +--
 gdb-cvs/gdb/arm-tdep.c                          |  112 +++------
 gdb-cvs/gdb/arm-tdep.h                          |    3
 gdb-cvs/gdb/breakpoint.h                        |    4
 gdb-cvs/gdb/doc/ChangeLog                       |   10
 gdb-cvs/gdb/doc/gdb.texinfo                     |    8
 gdb-cvs/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo                   |    2
 gdb-cvs/gdb/gdb.1                               |    2
 gdb-cvs/gdb/testsuite/gdb.ada/arrayptr.exp      |    9
 gdb-cvs/gdb/testsuite/gdb.ada/arrayptr/foo.adb  |    7
 gdb-cvs/gdb/testsuite/gdb.cp/cpexprs.exp        |    7
 gdb-cvs/gdb/utils.c                             |    6
 gdb-cvs/sim/bfin/ChangeLog                      |    5
 gdb-cvs/sim/bfin/dv-bfin_otp.c                  |    7
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/ChangeLog                    |   25 --
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/dv-glue.c                    |   41 ---
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-alloc.c                   |    3
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-base.c                    |   30 +-
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-device.h                  |    9
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-events.c                  |    6
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-handles.c                 |    6
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-instances.c               |    3
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-instances.h               |    3
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-main.h                    |    6
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-ports.c                   |    9
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-ports.h                   |    3
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-properties.c              |    3
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-properties.h              |   15 -
 gdb-cvs/sim/common/hw-tree.c                    |  100 +++-----
 gdb/.gitignore                                  |only
 gdb/gdb/testsuite/gdb.ada/mi_catch_ex.exp       |only
 gdb/gdb/testsuite/gdb.ada/mi_catch_ex/foo.adb   |only
 gdb/gdb/testsuite/gdb.arch/thumb-singlestep.S   |only
 gdb/gdb/testsuite/gdb.arch/thumb-singlestep.exp |only
 44 files changed, 536 insertions(+), 683 deletions(-)

That's many more differences than I expected,
so maybe something is going wrong with the mirroring
mechanism (note that git's top-level ChangeLog has four
commits from april 4 that are not in git-cvs's ChangeLog file).